The Whisperer - Paused
by Kaiimei
Summary: She wanted to remain unseen, a lowly tavern-wench in the seventh Ring of Minas Tirith. Her knowledge and abilities, if found, would change everything, so she endeavoured to hide. To remain below the view of Gandalf and his Ilk. However, life is rarely so agreeable, as one dimension-hopping girl is sure to learn. Rated M for Torture Scenes.


**I am completely unrepentant.**

**Reading A Shield of Stars, I then watched the Helm's Deep battle, which made me watch the siege of Minas Tirith, and I NEED to write a badass character who just...fucks the entire plot of the siege up and kicks ass, because fuck yeah.**

**Yes, I'm lazy, a lot of my characters share the same name, but I adore the name Layla. If I ever have a daughter, well, you can guess what she'd be called. I don't know much about LOTR Lore, so this might turn out a lot like Alagaesian Anomaly, but whatever. Anyways, hope you enjoy!**

**This will also have a character who is a bit bullshit, doesn't really follow anybody's expectations, and all in all warps reality around herself to get what she wants. She's going to pull some stuff straight out of her ass, just because I want her to.**

**Last thing. This is a world-walker story, Layla comes from our world.**

_**Chapter 1**_

* * *

"Layla..."

The aforementioned girl flailed a hand about, whacking something and drawing a yelp from it. Satisfied, she dropped her arm again and snoozed, only to get grabbed on the shoulder and shaken about. "Layla, get up or Faela'll kick you out." Snorting, Layla opened her blood-red eyes to see her friend Saethrith looking down at her with a frown.

"Yeah right Sae, she'd sooner kick herself out of this place than get rid of me. You think she'd go against hundreds of years spent with me as a part of the Inn, just for sleeping in a little bit?" Saethrith frowned at the unrepentant elven girl, nudging her side and getting her hand swatted again. "Alright fine, I'm getting up. Could I by chance bother you to prepare me a bath?" She said in a fake snooty voice.

Sighing, the girl nodded. "Fine, but only if you take over the latter half of my shift tonight." Raising an eyebrow, Layla looked over her friends face for a few moments before grinning and nudging the faintly-blushing girl with a finger, her body still hidden under her covers.

"Oh I see. So, who's the lucky guy?" If blushing could kill, her friend would probably be dead on the floor by now. "Wait, don't tell me, is it...the butcher's boy, what's his face...uhh, Macar...Markus...oh, Medios?" Saethrith winced at the last name, and Layla grinned wider. "Ahh, so it's Medios eh?" Layla found her lips covered by the hands of her friend, who glared at her.

"Tell Faela about this and I promise to put flour in your pillow, I swear it." With a gasp, Layla put a hand to her forehead, her eyes wide.

"Gah, such distrust!" She swept her hand to her heart. "Forsooth that I come between such young lo-tyehehe." She couldn't hold it any longer, snickering at the face her friend made." Ahh don't worry Sae, I won't tell a soul." She crossed her fingers over her chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye." The look on Sae's face made her grimace. "Right, not a saying here. Basically it means I swear on pain of death I won't tell anyone, I promise."

Saethrith's face lightened up a little, but she still seemed a bit uncomfortable. With a muttered 'thank you', Sae left the room, and Layla quickly used the time she had to fix her sleepwear, covering the marks littering her body before getting up out of her nice warm bed and stretching, her back cracking in several places as she let out a groan, yawning widely enough to pop her jaw a little.

Idly fingering the circular scar on her palm, she made her way to her dresser, throwing clothes about as she hunted for something to wear on that day. Faela, the owner of the Inn she was working at, was the daughter of the previous owner, who himself was the son of the previous owner, a particularly...enthusiastic lady who had no qualms hiring an elf to work in her Inn. Well, a hidden elf at any rate. The fact she'd spent over a hundred years at the Inn tipped some people off, but most people just ignored that fact, missing what was right in front of them.

It helped that her 'glow' was hidden, completely internalized thanks to the trauma she went through upon her rather...brutal arrival to Middle-Earth. She'd been told of, and even experienced for herself, the glow that elves gave off naturally. It was like a Siren's call, unseen but still naturally drawing, or in the case of evil harming, any it came into contact with. If her glow had existed outside of her body, she would have drawn all manner of people, from those who were good and sought only to aid, all the way to those unsavoury and who would seek to claim her for their own. Hiding her pointed ears under something meant that, with her glow only felt by herself, she was able to remain fairly normal, an elf amongst the people of Middle-Earth, as no other elf was capable of.

She just wished she hadn't had to go through such a hell for that kind of protection.

* * *

"Stop squirming you little bitch."

The cracking sound of a hand impacting her cheek snapped the girl's attention to her assailant. A particularly repugnant beast was her tormenter for that session it seemed. Sneering, she spat the blood from her mouth. "What, you too weak to keep little old me still?" She got a fist to the side of the ribs for her troubles.

Not that it really mattered. She had no idea how long she'd been trapped in the darkness, iron manacles on her wrists, her hands chained above her head and leaving her dangling a mere inch from the floor, her feet latched together with more manacles. Blood dribbled down from her lips to join the tapestry of scars and blood caking her body, old torture wounds from months or perhaps years gone past.

She had no idea how long she had existed within that darkness, tortured for uncountable lengths of time. Perhaps days passed between torments, perhaps mere minutes, time had lost all meaning for the trapped girl, her only solace being the strangely warm feeling within her chest she could feel whenever the pain and isolation became too much to bear.

Having her lips forced open, she glared as gruel was forcefully fed to her, but still ate, her mind never ceasing as it took in everything it could about her situation. She knew not exactly what had happened to her, one moment she was calmly walking in a forest near her home, and the next great and horrible beasts, reeking of filth and splattered in black blood, came flooding through the trees, snatching her up before she could utter a word and forcing a foul-tasting concoction through her lips, which knocked her out.

She woke up in her current situation, to the pain of a wound being opened on her body. At first, she screamed out and cried, in pain and confusion of her situation. As the tortures ran on, she slowly found herself more and more internalized, her mind receding to protect itself from the pain. But, no matter what happened, every time she wished it would simply end, with her death or otherwise, the same warm feeling cocooned her heart and soul, protecting her from giving in, always reminding her that freedom came to those who were patient. She just had to find the way out.

A clanging sound of metal on metal called out, and the thing feeding her startled at the noise, dropping the serving of gruel it was carrying as it drew its sword. It hastened to the door and threw it open, stepping outside, and Layla could only blink as three arrows stabbed through its throat. A man in gilded armour brushed past her door, then with a scraping of metal on the floor she heard him do an about-turn and burst into the room she was dangling from, his helmet obscuring his reaction, though she could hear his choked reaction to seeing her dangling from the ceiling.

"_Nikerym_!" He yelled, rushing to her side and checking her over. "_Aina_..._Asca Nikerym!" H_e yelled over his shoulder abruptly, making Layla wince from the sheer volume of his voice. _"Goheno nin." _He quickly murmured, and Layla tore her eyes from the dead creature outside of her door to give the man a closer look, not that she could see much. He had a metal-plumed helm which only revealed some of his face, and his body was covered by armour, intersecting sheets of metal entwining together over his torso, then the same around his hips and over his arms.

Her inner smith was squeeing at the workmanship so casually on display in front of her. Sure, she only did it rarely as a hobby, but even her untrained eyes knew a masterpiece when she saw it. Perhaps if she were paying less attention to the armour and more attention to the man inside of it she'd have heard his warning before he smashed the hook holding her chain and dropping her to the ground, smacking her head against the floor as her legs gave way. "Ow..." She dead-panned, pressing her fingers to the side of her head and bringing them back with a wince.

She wasn't bleeding, which was grand, but her fingers still had a lot of dried blood which was in her hair. She dreaded the moment she got in front of a mirror and saw whatever her body looked like. "I'm so sorry my Lady, are you alright?" Wait, what?

Turning to face the guy who freed her, she accepted his hand up and gestured to her legs, where her feet were still manacled together. "Uhh, thanks I guess. Still a bit stuck though as you can see." She pointedly ignored the fact he just decided to change languages at random, perhaps he realized she couldn't understand him.

"Oh, my apologies. Let me-" He struck down with his glaive, severing the poorly-made metal chain binding her feet together with ease. "-get that for you." Layla had to resist the urge to squee over the beautifully-intricate inscription adorning his weapon, instead reminding herself that she was, in fact, naked and put a hand before her chest.

"Thank you again. But, would you happen to have any spare coverings or something? Maybe just a cloak of some description?" The man looked at her for a moment before glancing down and blushing, turning away in a hurry, and leaving Layla stifling her giggle at seeing his cheeks redden so quickly.

"I can go and fetch something for you my Lady, if you would be willing to remain here while I do so?" Layla just shook her head.

"I'd rather not stay in here if it's all the same to you. Besides, I've already been seen by countless abominations, I'm sure I can handle a little more embarrassment if it means getting the hell out of here." The man gave her a sharp look for a few moments, his eyes looking down at her legs before back up to her face. "Don't worry, I can walk."

A few more moments passed before her saviour nodded and left the room, smoothly pulling his arrows from the corpse of the creature he killed and quickly bypassing it, heading the way he came. Kicking the corpse once for good measure, but also to make sure she wasn't unconscious and dreaming all of this up, she hurried after the man, her feet being scratched by the harsh stone of the roughly-hewn floor.

But, every jab of pain in her feet was another step towards freedom, so she grit her teeth and bore it wordlessly, ignoring the worried looks her escort gave her every time she gasped, a new rock having stabbed into her feet. As they emerged from the cave her prison was in, she saw several other similarly-armoured men, some sat stride their horses. Layla firmly kept her lips closed about the absurdity of her situation, of sword-wielding men saving her, the damsel in distress, from a band of orcs who were bent on torturing her.

"Captain." He called out loudly, and an unhelmed...elf, came over to greet him. "Captain, I found this elleth in their dungeons." He reported briskly. The elf gave her a once-over and grimaced, quickly taking the cloak off his back and wordlessly handing it to her. Muttering her thanks, she threw the cloak over her shoulders and wrapped it around her front, throwing the hood up and snuggling slightly against the fur lining the hood had, ignoring the slight shaking of the possibly-elf escort's shoulders as he obviously tried to not laugh.

"My Lady, I am Captain Elrond." Layla couldn't help it, her jaw dropped. With a keen eye, she looked more closely at the man. Hugo Weaving definitely did a damn good job portraying him, the main difference was that his hair was nowhere near as receded as it was made out to be in the movies.

Oh, right, introductions. "Uh, hi. I'm Layla." She murmured, her lips curled into a frown as she met his gaze for a moment before turning her head to look at the cave they had exited. "If it's...all the same to you, can we maybe get away from that place?" She unconsciously dropped a hand to rub over her forearm, grimacing as she felt each and every raised slice of skin.

Understanding her intent, Elrond quickly acquiesced, but not before having another man/elf/whatever bring her some garments to wear, leggings and a tunic of leather. When he expressed his apologies that it wasn't a dress, Layla frowned. "I don't wear 'dresses'. Give me leggings any day of the week." She said with a grin.

Elrond just shook his head with a smirk of his own, gesturing towards a horse with no rider, and explaining that she and 'Tuor', the elf who found her, would be riding to Imladris. Shrugging, she walked over to the horse after thanking the elf, hoisting herself up onto the horse and settling in front of the saddle. When she noticed all the looks she was getting, she quirked an eyebrow. "What?"

"My Lady, would you not prefer riding Sidesaddle?" Blinking, she quirked her head to the side, frowning.

"Why would I want to ride like that?"

* * *

Smirking to herself, Layla laid out some clothes on her bed, flipping them about before nodding to herself and gathering them on her arm.

Hearing a knock at the door, she quickly exited her room and smiled at Sae. "So, which room did you get?" Sae took her arm and the pair chatted idly as they walked, mostly about completely unimportant topics like who's seeing who, what supplies are currently available in the marketplace, and equally mundane topics which just served to make Layla treasure her relationship with Saethrith even more. The young girl just seemed so friendly, so open, that it was hard to not like the girl.

Reaching the few baths the Inn had, Layla quickly pecked Saethrith on the cheek in thanks. "You're awesome, thanks Sae!" She chirped before stepping through the door and closing it, leaving the girl stood outside for a moment smiling before she wandered off.

Stripping down, Layla dipped her toe into the water before plunging the rest of her body into the small copper tub, nudging the large nozzle above the bath away from her by reaching her foot up. It was a pretty ingenious mechanism, one she'd built herself. The most basic gist of it was that it heated water and placed it in an affixed tank within the bathroom, and a nozzle on a hinge with piping attached to the tank would dangle above the bath almost like a shower. There was a lever on top of it to let the water flow, acting as a tap.

All in all, pretty simple, but way more convenient than hauling up water and starting a fire under the tub or something. It was one of the main reasons the changing Innkeepers were just so wary of getting rid of her. She was a bit weird at times, even by Elven standards, but she more than made up for it by introducing even weirder and quirky new inventions to the Inn. Case in point, the baths. She did that occasionally, spotting something she thought was stupid then coming up with something on the spot to fix it. Rudimentary central heating with piped water and taps. These were things that were only known in the far higher rings, owned entirely by the nobility. It was certainly not something a first-level Inn should have any business possessing. With a sigh, she sunk down into the bath and closed her eyes, remembering her first bath in Middle-Earth, that was certainly a culture shock.

Her ears picked up someone walking down the hallway, but she ignored it, just as she ignored the faint clanging of someone presumably making food, the faint calls and cries of people from the nearby market hawking their wares to the citizens of Minas Tirith, and the general noise of the city as it woke up. What she didn't ignore was the door to the bathroom opening, and a female she didn't recognise entered the room, only to yelp in surprise and spin around. From what she'd seen of her face she could have gone to the market pretending to be a tomato and none would know the difference. "I'm so sorry!" The girl called out behind her as she hurried back out of the room.

"Hey, it's fine." Layla said gently, inwardly sighing. It wasn't as though her elf ears were a secret or something, she just never mentioned them, and since she had her ears covered the entire time she was around the rest of the inhabitants for the Inn, only Saethrith, the Innkeeper, and a particularly eagle-eyed old man knew what she was. Now this girl, who Layla recalled was one of the new serving-girls in the tavern section of the Inn, could count herself amongst that number.

"Though if you wanted to cop a look you coulda just asked." She said cheekily. Her blasé attitude definitely served to calm the girl somewhat, and she decided to take advantage of that. "Well, I'm about done anyway, d'ya think you could hand me that towel?" She waited for the girl to turn around a little, then pointed towards the sole towel-rack in the room.

The thoroughly embarrassed girl quickly darted over to the towel, grasping it and unconsciously threading her fingers through the soft material. It was soft, far softer than the course and rough towel she owned, though her hands quickly froze when the elf in the room chuckled at her. "You look just like Saethrith when you do that you know." Her eyes swapped from the towel she was holding to the elf still sat in her bath, and though she tried to avoid iut, her eyes were drawn not to her bared body. Well, they were, but not to the places she thought she'd be looking at.

Scars.

Not one. Or two. Or a mere dozen. Dozens, possibly hundreds. They ranged from small things barely the size of a fingernail up to long, jagged rents of discoloured, puffy skin. And it wasn't limited to her torso. Her right arm, which was sat atop the edge of the bathtub, had numerous scars pockmarking her flesh. her hands also showed signs of scarring, but it was clear the elf had done something to minimize the visibility, presumably to avoid questions. With this in mind, she swept her gaze over the elf again, spotting more scars running up her neck, and even one on her face, though it was so faint as to be almost un-noticeable. "Like what you see?"

The sudden voice made the young girl jolt harshly, and her face turned a bright red again from sheer mortification. "I'm sorry." She murmured quietly, averting her gaze to the floor and tromping forwards with the towel held out in front of herself. When she got close enough, she thrust the towel out and let go when she felt the elf grasp it, only to find her wrist also being gripped.

"Hey now, none of that." Raising her eyes, she looked the elf right in her crimson eyes, simultaneously afraid and entranced by the red irises looking back at her. She felt a thumb rubbing against her wrist gently, and though some ingrained survival instinct told her to rip her hand back as quickly as she could, she remained still. After a moment passed, the elf curled her lips up into a smile. "Well, I guess since you saw me naked, it's only fair you reciprocate!" The elf then leered forwards, her lips pulled back into a savage grin and her eyes seemed to almost light up.

As the girl darted away, somehow freeing her hand and nearly falling over, loud guffawing found her ears, to which she turned from her fixed gaze of the elf to see Saethrith stood at the door suppressing laughter. "Wow, I left you alone for ten minutes and you've already ogled Layla?" Gasping, the new serving-girl turned to look at the elf, finding her stood out of the bath with her towel firmly wrapped around her mid-riff, another one procured from somewhere and wrapped around her hair. The elf-girl raised her hand and gave the two a small wave, before turning away from them to begin walking away towards another door of the room, which she remembered contained a mirror and some other things. "Hey, you need a brush?" Saethrith called after the retreating elf, who just shook her head and left the room. "Ahh. Now then, what am I going to do with you Nala?"

Nala dipped her head, murmuring. "I'm sorry, I thought it was empty."

She then felt a hand rubbing her head, so twisted her gaze up from the floor to see Sae caressing her hair. "Hey, it's fine, Layla is...unique. She won't care that you saw her in the bath. Sure, she does...something with her scars so you can't see them all, which trust me, it's a good thing you can't see all her scars, but the fact is that as long as you don't go shouting to the rooftops that she's an elf with a ton of scars, you'll be fine."

Tousling Nala's hair a final time, Sae turned to leave the room, the new girl quickly hurrying after her.

* * *

**Okay, that was...fun...ish.**

**I may have a problem with messing my characters up. I mean, in at least 4 of my stories Ruby has some kind of permanent injury, Crystal has a slit throat so she can't talk, Hana...I don't recall whether Hana has any kind of permanent injury...then again Kurami would protect her from that so I can't really do much...Oh no.**

**I...uhh, may have corrupted Layla in Eternal Game now...she's doomed to get injured in some nasty way. Sawwy!**

**Well, I hope you enjoyed this beginning chapter! Please, PLEASE, leave a review, I adore reading them. Even if you don't have anything pleasant to say, say it anyway! If I don't know what you don't like about my stories, I can't improve upon them!**


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